Do I need to thin my Little Leo sunflowers out?

Just a quick question... I've planted a number of Little Leo sunflowers and some of the pots have two plants in, this pictured one has three... should I make it so there's just one or is 2/3 in the same pot acceptable? Thanks

 

I took that picture two days ago. I went out today to look at this pot and the leaves have been taken off just leaving the stem. Most of the other sunflowers are okay. Have they been eaten by something?

 

I assume the pot was outside. My first thought would be pheasants or rabbits as they tend to leave the stems. Have you got this sort of wildlife around you?

I'm growing dwarf sunflowers and have potted them on into seperate pots.

 

No, the only wildlife here that I see is woodlice, slugs and snails! The pot which had three in and two broken off is growing a further two now though, which I don't understand. I had ten pots, ten sunflower seeds, and there's about 20 growing... I thought it was one seed one plant but guess I was wrong!

 

I think slugs and snails have a look around the pots and underneath

Did you plant them up ?? as the seeds are quite big .

Spruce

 

The fact that the plants were broken off suggests something other than slugs and snails. The only other thing I can think of is garden birds, they can be destructive, particularly sparrows.

One seed will produce one plant, so what you have growing now will probably be something different, perhaps weeds. The seedlings in the picture above look like sunflowers to me.

 

Spruce: If you mean did I plant the seeds the right way up... it was my son and partner who potted these and I don't think they did.

Sheal: Birds seems the best guess. Regarding the one seed/one plant... that is pretty strange. We used compost from the bag so I wouldn't expect weeds to grow. All the plants growing now look the same too. I guess only time will tell...

 

Looks like they planted more than one then

Spruce

 

You would think that but there were ten seeds in the packet and ten pots...

 

When they have their true leaves lets all have another photo, this one is getting intresting

Spruce

 

Well it said average contents ten seeds anyway, I didn't know exactly how many there were myself. But yep, I will do another photo when the time's right

 

I solved the mystery - it's 20 seeds in the packet. I wish my son and partner hadn't sown the lot into ten pots but not much I can do about it now...

Edit: It's probably for the best considering half of it will probably get eaten...

 

Glad the mystery's solved. If you have sand or fine grit sprinkle that on the ground round the pots, if it is slugs and snails then they won't go near it. You could also rig up a net or mesh tent until the seedlings have matured and you'll probably find if it is the birds they'll leave them alone as they mature.

Mine are now six inches tall and luckily still in tact.

 

Thanks for the tips.

I did this a couple of hours ago, will this be good enough for the birds? I see a lot of these down my allotments, not sure how effective they are though.



I would put sand down but it'd just blow away...

 

It may work it depends on how 'fiendish' the birds are. For the snails try standing the planter on a couple of bricks or similar, it's not guaranteed to work but will help. Slugs and snails don't like copper (metal) either, although it's expensive to buy if you have some old copper laying around you can surround the pots with that.